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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Singapore's YOG coach dies

DAVID Sivalingam (picture), coach of Singapore's Asian Youth Games and Youth Olympic Games football teams, died on Sunday evening after collapsing at a football game. He was 51.

Tragedy struck the Football Association of Singapore staff coach during a charity game at the Indian Association. The match was organised by some former players, including Sivalingam, and friends to raise money for former Woodlands Wellington winger S. Anthonysamy, who was paralysed after a tackle in 1996.

Some of the ex-Malaysia Cup veterans present were V. Sundramoorthy and Abbas Saad. Former Singapore international R. Suriamurthi, also a FAS staff coach, was on the sidelines of the pitch when his colleague collapsed suddenly.

"Sivalingam has no health problems that I am aware of. The match kicked-off at 5pm and he played for half an hour before falling forward, face down," said Suriamurthi.

"He was unconscious and his mouth was bleeding as a result of the fall. A doctor and nurse, who were on the sidelines, attended to him immediately. An ambulance came within minutes but after Sivalingam reached Tan Tock Seng Hospital, he was pronounced dead at about 5.50pm."

Sivalingam led the Asian Youth Games team out on home soil in July. Although the Under-14s lost to Iran (1-2), Thailand (1-4) and China (0-3), the team earned kudos for their gutsy performances. -ST.

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Thank you for visiting my blog. Through this blog I hope to share some thoughts, reproduce my writings in Utusan Malaysia, Kosmo and other publications and also to inform you about the happenings of my favorite past time - sports. You can read, but do not publish any contents with my written permission. What I have written, is to my best knowledge the truth. Mistakes do happen and I apologize if ever it does. God Bless You

About Me

I became a journalist on 1st June 1982. Started of as a cadet reporter and then went on to be Chief Reporter, Assistant Sports Editor, Sports News Editor and finally Sports Editor before I stepped out of the news room on 1st November 2000. Been to many places, covered many games, matches and events and wrote plenty of commentaries.